


Small Green Things

by PunkArsenic



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: COUNTER/Weight - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Plants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 05:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkArsenic/pseuds/PunkArsenic
Summary: AuDy watched the stars slowly spin, spilling cold light across the plain. "There are things," AuDy said, "that are not home. But they are, inexplicably, something similar. I like that.”For @Occasionfel on twitter, secret samol 2017. AuDy's friends help them  out with their hobbies.





	Small Green Things

It started slow. A succulent here, a box of cress there. Small green things; they were pleasant, dirty comfort. Nobody asked.  
  
But over the months, the invasive flora multiplied; vines crept along steel plating, digging leafy fingers into sockets. From each available surface sprung expansive leaves and wandering stems and flowers - bright and aromatic and overwhelming. The Chime had grown accustomed to sweeping soil from every surface. Not to say they enjoyed it.

“Bleugh!” Mako spat his coffee down the sink. “How,” he called out to nobody in particularly, swirling the bits around in his mug, “did fucking dirt get into my coffee?”  
  
Cass didn’t look up from their tablet. “Oh, I think AuDy was using the mugs to move around some saplings last night; the noise kept me awake.” They look up, “I wonder whose mug they broke…”  
  
Mako sighed, jumped over the couch, and put his feet up beside Cass - “must’a been yours, I had to use Aria’s.”  
  
“Damnit,” chewing on the end of their stylus, Cass groaned, “I really liked that one.”  
  
“Me too! It had a shark on it!” Mako threw up his arms.  
  
Cass gave him a sidelong look, muttering, “it was a dolphin…”  
  
Mako scrunched up his face, “Dolphin? That sounds fake.”  
  
Shaking their head, Cass sat up, “we need to do something about this. It’s only so long until we have to leave the planet for something, and I don’t want to wait until _then_ to find out some vine has breached the airlock. It’s a major hazard.”  
  
“Plus,” added Mako, scratching his nose, “I can’t use the toilet without some rhododendron staring me down. Do you know how hard it is to go with a plant in your face??”  
  
_**“AUUUUDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”**_  
  
Aria stormed into the room in a dressing gown, huffing and muttering. She stopped in front of the pair, hands on hips, “where are they?”  
  
Mako shrugged, and Cass said: “I think they went out for something. You know they never tell us.”  
  
Grinning, Mako stretched his arms out across the back of the sofa, “what’s up? ‘They forget about your girls’ night in?”  
  
Aria wrinkled her nose, scowling at him, “what? No. That makes no sense.” She huffed, shoved him aside, and sat. “I moved some of their stupid plants into the hallway to have a bath, went to get changed… I come back to find the plants _back_ in the bathroom and the door locked! I need a bath!” She groaned and hugged herself, “I’ve been _asking_  them for days, and with all this dirt around… I _neeeeeed_ a _baaaaath!”_

 

It started slow. A visit, once, on a freezing night of respite from the Chime. When the world outside had grown markedly grey, artificial, and - well, un-growing, this place served as sanctuary. In a most literal sense.  
  
The windows were irrelevant; a steamed-up formality, streaming muffled green light across the concrete. AuDy had always been drawn to green.  
  
Their entrance was met immediately by lush, swelling foliage - it erupted from every shelf, spilling into the narrow gaps between and pressing up against the shop glass. The air was thick with moisture, gathering in droplets across their cold casing. Conscious of this, AuDy raised their shoulders. The light, cut into narrow searchlights unable to find ground, came from a grid of humming floodlights a few feet above.  
  
AuDy ventured further. They brushed branches aside, stroking gentle leaves and swinging their head to record their discovery in detail. They and Cene had discussed in length whether AuDy had emotions, and the nature of emotion at all - the verdict was unclear. However, it was agreed that to think was, more or less, to feel. AuDy came to rest at a display of gingko trees, meandering branches grasping for an artificial heaven. AuDy felt… strange.  
  
“Beautiful, aren’t they?”  
  
Looking up, they saw a woman sat on a little step ladder beside the counter. Her flat, freckled face was tanned and mottled with mud, her bare hands worn and nails dark. Her smile was warm. “Old, too,” she came to stand beside AuDy, reaching half their height. “The last of a very old genus, these trees…” Reaching out, she runs a finger along the furrowed and corky bark, “‘older than us humans. Existed before we ever evolved, back on Earth - and they’ll be here once we’re gone, I’ll bet.”  
  
AuDy said nothing, but copied her action. The bumps of the bark made a noise against their carbon fiber fingers, and they ran them back and forth.  
  
“You know,” continued the woman, “I can’t say I’ve ever seen a robot in here. Never met one particularly inclined to the organic, really. Most of my custom comes from the breathing type, lonely folk. I think the relationship between our breath and a plant’s… the codependence, it’s a kind of comfort.”  
  
“Anything growing,” said AuDy, picking up a fallen leaf and spinning it in their fingers, “is a comfort.”  
  
The woman nodded, smiling at them, “I think you’re right.” Clapping her hands together, she returned to her counter, saying, “you know, mr. robot, I need to close up shop very soon, and I should hope there’s some folk missing you too.” Pushing aside some pots and pliers, she leant on the counter and tilted her head, “how about taking something breathing home?”  
  
AuDy looked at her, then at the cluster of gingko, then back. “I don’t want to kill it.”  
  
The woman smiled, “no, that would be no good. Tell you what, I’ll start you off with something small and easy. If you can look after that, come back, and I’ll give you something a little harder. Then, maybe, once you’ve proven your green fingers, we can talk about the gingko.”

 

When AuDy came home, the Chime were waiting in the bay for them. They cradled a potted shrub in their arms, and looked as surprised as a faceless robot could to be confronted.  
  
“Hey AuDy,” said Aria, stepping forward.  
  
“Hello Aria,” they said. They hugged their plant a little tighter.  
  
“Can we talk?”  
  
They relocated to the common room. AuDy settled their shrub in the middle of the glass coffee table, and watched it as their friends talked.  
  
“Look, AuDy,” said Aria, sat beside them, “you know we love you, and we love how much you care for your plants.” The shrub looked very nice there, the centre of attention.  
  
“But…” Aria sighed, shifting in her seat, “the thing is, they’re kind of everywhere. Y’know? And it’s causing us a few problems.”  
  
Of course, the pot would be too small very soon, and this kind of plant was prone to shedding leaves. That would be alright. They could clean up the leaves. “I’m worried,” said Cass, “we’re all worried. Not just about the state of the ship, which, well… I don’t think it’s designed to be a greenhouse. But we’re worried about you. Do you even have the credits for all these plants?”  
  
The plant - they were thinking, it should be called Liberty. They didn’t know why. The plant was still in its plastic pot, and had spilt a little soil and water onto the glass. That was okay. They would clean that up.  
  
“And even if you do,” added Aria, “don’t you think you have enough now?”  
  
Audy didn’t say anything, but they knew from a little blinking light that they were thinking. Or at least, that’s probably what that light was for. “AuDy?”  
  
Mako stood up to be seen over the shrub, “you gotta get rid of some of the plants man. I can’t be sharing a bathroom with a fern no more.”  
  
AuDy looked up. “I cannot do that.”  
  
Aria sighed, taking AuDy’s arm, “AuDy, I know it’s difficult, but this isn’t just your ship. We live here too, and it’s getting… uncomfortable.”  
  
AuDy turned to look at her. Or, maybe they did. She guessed. “Actually, it is my ship. Just my ship. You may need to work on the Kingdom Come, but you do not need to live here.”  
  
Cass took AuDy’s other arm, “what do you mean, buddy?”

Brushing them off, AuDy stood. They picked up their plant. “You are my friends, so I will move all of my plants into my room, and into the cockpit. But I will not get rid of any of them.”  
  
“Will you even have room for them all buddy?” Mako asked.  
  
“It will be fine.” AuDy left. Then they came back, retrieved several more plants, and left again.  
  
“Well, that was easy…” muttered Mako.

 

“Do not come into the cockpit. Everything is fine.”  
  
It had been a week, and they’d seen very little of AuDy, and even less green. They had begun to miss it. A little.  
  
Mako, Cass, and Aria met in the corridor. Tenderly, Aria knocked on the cockpit door, “AuDy? Do you want a hand?”  
  
“Everything is fine,” the intercom came again. “Please stay away from the door.”  
  
They backed away, and watched.  
  
AuDy burst through. They wrenched open a closet, hauling smothering blankets and an extinguisher back into the cockpit. The door closed behind them.  
  
The Chime watched. The door wouldn’t open.  
  
“Everyone please step outside the ship. Everything is fine.”  
  
Hastily, the three grabbed a few belongings and bustled into the cold Counterweight dawn. They shuffled away from the ship. Aria and Cass exchanged a glance, and then dashed back inside to retrieve their mechs, leaving Mako barefoot, alone, clutching a bag of tech. To feel useful, he called AuDy.  
  
“Everything is fine.”  
  
“Hey buddy!” Mako, on speakerphone, could hear crackling around them, “‘that a fire?”  
  
“I have it under control.”  
  
“Yeah, sure you do buddy, but if it’s a fire you should get outta there too, y’know.”  
  
“I am fine.”  
  
“You sure? A captain doesn’t _have_ to go down with the ship, alright? You can ask for help if you need it.”  
  
“I am fine.” They paused. “The situation is under control,” AuDy said. Then they hung up.  
  
The Kingdom Come took off, folding up its props and disappearing above the rooftops.  
  
Running from behind the ship, Cass and Aria chased after the ship in their mechs, ducking between buildings to keep the ship in sights. Mako watched them, calling and hanging up, calling and hanging up, desperately trying to get AuDy back online.  
  
No hope. Cass and Aria landed - Aria launching herself from the Regent’s Brilliance and grabbing Mako, “did you call them? What did they say?”  
  
Mako yelled as he was shook, “not much, y’know! There’s a fire, probably. They said they've got it under control. I told them to get outta there but they didn’t listen, and then, y’know.”  
  
“UGH!” Pacing, Aria ran carefully manicured fingers through her hair. “What do we do?”  
  
Cass slid from the Megalophile and looked at Mako. They shrugged at eachother. “AuDy’s competent,” Cass said, putting a hand on Aria’s shoulder. “Maybe they just needs space.”  
  
Aria huffs and bobs her head, “I guess you’re right. But…” she looks around, “what are _we_ gonna do?”  
  
“Oh!” Mako raised a hand, “I know!”

 

Orth Godlove ran a hand down his weathered face. “A fire?”  
  
Offices, traditionally, are built to accommodate guests. Space is provided for standing, chairs clear for seating. It was a peculiar design flaw Orth had spent his career counteracting with masses and masses of stuff. His office was that of a man who did not want an office; shelves, which lined every wall, were stuffed with various odds and ends. Bolts, solder, reels of wire. Navigation equipment nestled itself atop files and boxes of paperclips, and a flight helmet balanced atop the coat rack.  
  
The Chime were not welcome. Aria relocated files to beneath their cramped and greying chairs, and they sat - Aria alone, Mako on Cass’ lap - on the edges of their seats, perched ready for the inevitable ejection. “Yes,” said Aria, “a fire.”  
  
“And you let them fly off with it?” Orth picked up a pencil - a physical comfort he cherished - and chewed on the end. “While it was on fire?”  
  
Grimacing, Aria bobbed her head, “we didn’t really have a choice in the matter.”  
  
“Yeah,” agreed Mako, leaning back, wobbling, and leaning forward again, “like they said, it’s not _our_ ship.”  
  
“No.” Sitting forward, Orth knitted his brows and fingers, chewing at his lip, “it’s mine. And you let a reclusive robot run off with it. On fire.”  
  
Mako glanced at Aria. “Well, you _did_ sell it to them.”

“That’s not relevant right now,” Aria interjected, reaching out an arm across her friend, “what’s important is how we can get AuDy and the Kingdom Come back in one piece.”  
  
Orth looked at her over his glasses, “in one piece?”  
  
She grinned, “bad phrasing. The Kingdom Come is fine, AuDy is trustworthy enough for that. It’s just…”  
  
“We think we kinda pissed them off,” said Cass.  
  
“And how’d you do that, then?” Orth sat back.  
  
The Chime exchanged glances, and explained.  
  
Cene Sixheart was called, being the only person who really seemed to ‘get’ AuDy. Or get close. Aria made room, choosing to stand while Cene sat, and they explained the situation again for them.  
  
“They… have talked about the plants. A little.” They peered up at the worried faces of the cohort, bewildered. “I didn’t realise it was such a problem.”  
  
“Do you have any idea where this came from? Anything in their past experiences, their programming?” Orth asked, fiddling compulsively with a desk toy. Mako watched him carefully, as he reached for a discarded spare on the cluttered desk.  
  
Cene shook their head, “no, they're a parking robot. Designed for concrete, order, organisation. Plant rearing, it’s… organic, nurturing. Matronly, almost. That’s not AuDy. I don’t know where that comes from.”  
  
Mako looked up, “what do you mean, ‘not AuDy?’ You think that’s not them?”  
  
“Oh, no!” Cene shook their head again with vigour, “that’s AuDy! I ran several tests very recently, they're all fine. I just don’t know where this is _coming_ from - there _are_ things I don’t know about them, you know?”  
  
Aria stopped in front of him and held out her arms, “well, what should we do? Just leave them alone, hope they come back? Go after them? What?”  
  
Cene grew quiet, wrapping their hair around their fingers as they thought. The Chime and Orth watched. “Well,” they said, “it’s the plants that are an issue, is it?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I think I know who to talk to.”

 

It had been an electrical fire. Easy enough to isolate.  
  
AuDy sat among the small, once green things - what was left. They gathered them in a crackling embrace, building mounds of debris, and scanned for salvageable life. Slowly, they carried survivors to the common room. They filled sinks and bowls and mugs, tended and repaired and put to rest. They surveyed the wounded. It was few.  
  
The dead were collected, and disposed of - strewn across the glistening deserts that coated Counterweight, between the domes. A perfect place for dead things.  
  
The Kingdom Come sweltered beneath the unencumbered sun, casting a long shadow; the only growing thing for miles. Inside, it was dark. AuDy sat in the cockpit, unseeing, unmoving, unfeeling. A small light flashed. The stars came out, and accompanied Weight in its slow dance across the sky, glistening with wide seas and lush, green forests. Across they flew, and AuDy waited in the dark. As they waited, Weight fell again, and sunlight filled the plains with blood, illuminating AuDy’s unseeing surface. The salvaged plants lifted their struggling heads, and grew with the shadows. Dark fell again.  
  
As Weight crept from the Kingdom Come’s line of sight, the cockpit door opened. “AuDy?”  
  
Aria swung her torch across the width of the cockpit, taking in the scorch marks up the control board and the empty, broken pots. Her torchlight came to rest on the captain’s chair. “AuDy, I know you can hear me.”  
  
“I turned off the ship. How did you find me?”  
  
Aria shrugged, “me and Cass have been flying around for a few hours now. It still works, right?”  
  
“It’s fine.”  
  
“And your plants… the ones that are left, they look better. Lots of sunlight out here, and you watered them. I’m glad the Aloe-”  
  
“It’s fine.”  
  
Aria came and leant on the control board, shining her torch at AuDy. The robot moved, a little. “It’s not, is it?”  
  
“I wanted…” they opened their hands, moving each finger in a small wave, “to cultivate…”  
  
“What was it about the plants? Nobody understands.”  
  
AuDy watched the stars slowly spin, spilling cold light across the plain. "There are things," AuDy said, "that are not home. But they are, inexplicably, something similar. I like that.”  
  
“You wanted to have the gingko.” AuDy lit up, turning to look at Aria, and she smiled. “We went to the botanist, she told us about your deal.”  
  
“That doesn’t matter now. I do not have green fingers.”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know…” Aria began flicking switches on the control board, bringing the ship slowly to life in a series of hums and whirrs and beeps, bringing dead metal back to the realm of breathing things. AuDy watched her, bewildered. “You’d be surprised. Take us home, AuDy.” Stepping back, she smiled at them. AuDy took the wheel.

 

They landed in the strip of industrial land that circled Centralia, where rows of warehouses and garages could be rented out for various suspicious means. AuDy and Aria walked hand in hand past the tin buildings, boarded up and greying and devoid of life - until a humming came into earshot, and they arrived at a doorway that spilled muffled light across the concrete.  
  
The Megalophile landed, Cass tumbling out and running to their friends, smiling. From the warehouse emerged  Mako, Orth, and Cene. AuDy swung their head around, throwing questioning gestures at their grinning friends. They stepped inside.  
  
Far above, humming lights shared space with holes the sky, casting a distant, artificial heaven’s light down upon rows and rows of lush, growing, blooming plants. They spiralled through the complex, brushing leaves and cradling flowers. At the centre, strung with little lights as it curled its way up to greet them, was the gingko. The botanist patted down some earth at its base, and stood, resting her hands on her belt - “It was only a matter of time until I invested in a warehouse.”  
  
Cass rested their hand on AuDy’s shoulder, their friends gathered around the robot. “The thing is,” continued the botanist, coming to stand in front of AuDy, “I need someone to look after it. You know, pop in once or twice a week, water all these lovely things.”  
  
AuDy looked around, then back to her, “but the fire. They are all dead.”  
  
“That wasn’t your fault,” said Aria.  
  
Mako looked up at them, waving a hand sheepishly, “it was kinda ours.”  
  
AuDy looked at him. “Kinda.”  
  
“C’mon, there’s a whole van of seeds to plant,” the botanist pushed past them towards the door, “thanks to your friend Godlove over there.”  
  
The Chime dug and planted through the night into morning, covered in dirt and growing things. Mako and Aria made chains from the small flowers, stringing them around AuDy and the mechs.  
  
“Hey,” a small pot sat on a table by the door, and Mako scooped it up, calling out to his friends as they left. “Can we keep this one?” Cass tilted their head at him. “Oh come on, just _one_ won’t hurt.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Small Green Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16721253) by [ZoeBug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug)




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